


Seasons

by Blue_Lacquer



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 01:50:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3673047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Lacquer/pseuds/Blue_Lacquer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four different times of the year, four different periods in Mai's relationship with Zuko.  Or:  1. Mai likes Zuko.  2. Mai likes Zuko, but not like <i>that</i>.  3. Mai likes Zuko, even though his family is messed up.  4. OK, Mai likes Zuko, like <i>that</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seasons

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on livejournal.

**Spring**

Mai was excited as Keiko tied ribbons in her hair.

"I want to go, Mom," she said, wriggling under her nanny's hands. "Let's go." She had been traveling with her parents in the colonies, and hadn't seen Zuko for an entire month.  
  
"Shh," her mother said. "Be still. Keiko can't do your hair if you squirm. What are you?"

"I'm a lady," Mai said.

"Yes. And what should you always do?"  
  
"I should act like a lady."

"Yes." Keiko finished with her hair, and her mother said, "Now, let me see you."  
  
Mai presented herself, and her mother inspected her appearance. She was wearing a new red-brown dress and matching slippers.

"Good," her mother said. "Now, what are we doing today?"

"We're going to tea at the Fire Lord's palace."

"Right. And what do young ladies do at tea at the Fire Lord's palace?"

Mai demonstrated: she bowed, then sat quietly in the chair next to her mother.

"Very good. And what do young ladies say when the Princess greets them?"

Mai recited: "I am honored to be your guest, Princess Ursa."

"And what other things might they say if the Princess speaks to them?"

"Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. Please, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."

Mai's mother put her hands on her daughter's shoulders and squeezed gently. "Exactly," she said, smiling. "Good girl." Mai smiled back at her.

They arrived at the palace, and were shown to the garden where Princess Ursa was having tea. The garden was a lush, fresh green, blooming with small flowers in red and yellow, and the ground was damp from a week of spring rain. Mai walked at her mother's side like a proper Fire Nation girl, with a gliding step and a serene expression. She was proud because she had finally turned six and was old enough to go to tea like a grown up lady. Her mother was pleased with her looks and her manners, and everything was going so smoothly, until she saw him. She was so happy to see her friend at last, she could not contain herself any longer. "Zuko!" she shrieked, and pounced.

Her mother shouted, "Mai!" and lunged for her, but it was too late--she was already in the air. She grabbed his shoulders, toppling him over, and they both rolled over the spongy grass, laughing.

The reunion was short lived. Mai's mother pulled her daughter up off the ground. "What are you doing?" she said. "You've been bad, Mai, very bad. Look, you've ruined your new dress." She pointed to the wet grass stains on it. "Now, apologize to the Princess. And you will go home."

Mai looked at the ground, chastened. Then she glanced up at the Princess, who was very beautiful, and who was laughing.

"Oh, Hua, it's all right. Let them play. It's very sweet."

Mai's mother looked uncertain. "I understand, Princess Ursa. I thank you for your indulgence. But I don't wish to reward this sort of behavior."

Mai and Zuko looked at each other. He tugged his mother's sleeve, and asked, "Mom, can Mai stay please?"

Mai went to the Princess, bowed, and said, in her most solemn voice, "I am sorry, ma'am, for showing disrespect to your"--she thought quickly--"grass. I will not do it again."  
  
The Princess put a hand to her mouth and turned away for a moment. Mai wondered if she was all right, because she was shaking. Her own mother covered her face with her hands. The Princess turned back to Mai, and said, her cheeks flushed, "I accept your apology, dear." She looked at Mai's mother. "She is more than welcome to stay."

Her mother sighed. She stood up very tall over Mai, pointed a finger, and said, "Since the Princess has allowed it, and since the Prince would like it, you may stay. But if you do something like this once more, you will be sent home, and you will not be allowed to come for tea again."

Mai started to jump up and down, but stopped at her mother's disapproving look.

***

**Summer**

Mai carefully held the knife hilt in her fingers, testing the weight. This was a much larger blade than she was used to throwing. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and she wiped it away with her free hand. They were in the middle of the hottest, driest weeks of the summer, the Dragon's Breath Days, so named because during them it felt like a dragon was breathing down on the Fire Nation. She balanced the knife in her hand and focused on the center of the target Lu Ten had drawn on the tree. With a quick, smooth motion, she released it, and it spun through the air, striking just to the left of the heart of the white X. If she'd used one of her own knives, she would have hit the target dead center.

Lu Ten said, "Nice, Mai." He pulled his knife from the tree trunk, and re-sheathed it. "Zuko told me you were good."

Zuko smiled at his cousin, then at Mai. She felt embarrassed having them both looking at her. She wasn't used to people paying much attention to her, even in a group of three. "I practice a lot," she said.

"That's how you get to be good at something," Lu Ten said. He put an arm around Zuko's shoulder, "Like my cousin and the dao swords." Zuko smiled broadly at the praise.

The heavy afternoon sun baked everything in its path. It was too hot to do much, and Lu Ten was determined to be as lazy as possible while on vacation from the Fire Army Academy. The three of them sat at the weather roughened wooden table under the long shadow of a fire oak, sipping watermelon juice.  
  
"So where's Azula?" Lu Ten asked. "I've hardly seen her."

"She's probably doing fire bending drills," Zuko said. "She doesn't want to see you anyway."

"Why? Doesn't she like me anymore?" Lu Ten grinned.

"She's still mad because you beat her at pai sho," Zuko explained.

"You're kidding me? That was three days ago. I was trying to teach her to play."  
  
Zuko shook his head. "No one ever beats her at anything."

Lu Ten whistled. "That is the most tightly wound seven year old girl in the world." Zuko laughed at this description. Lu Ten turned to Mai, "So, you hang out at the palace a lot?"

Mai wasn't quite sure how to take this question. "I visit often," she said.  
  
"Zuko talks about you a lot," he said. Zuko suddenly found something very interesting to look at in the shrubs nearby at that statement.

Mai shrugged. "He talks to me a lot," she said.

Lu Ten laughed, although she hadn't intended it as a joke. "That's a good one. Well, I'm just glad Zuko has a good _friend_ , who's a _girl_." He winked at Zuko, who turned red. Lu Ten laughed even harder at the outraged chorus that followed:

"She is not my girlfriend!"

"I am not his girlfriend!"

"OK, OK," the older boy said, holding up a hand. "My mistake."

Mai frowned, and crossed her arms. Zuko took up a similar posture. First her parents started making jokes--which they didn't think she understood, but she did--about her spending so much time at the palace she should move in someday. Now Lu Ten was teasing her about liking Zuko, not the normal way people liked their friends, but the icky way girls liked boys. She didn't understand where people got these strange ideas.

***

**Fall**

Mai arrived at the turtle duck pond in the palace gardens, one of Zuko's favorite spots. She had hoped to find him here, and here he was, sitting by himself, looking at the water. There were no turtle ducks to be seen. She hesitated, wondering if he would rather be alone, but she figured if he did, he would tell her to go away. She felt her cheeks flush at the idea of sitting next to him, but she willed it away in a moment and approached.

"Zuko," she said. He didn't hear her, and she cleared her throat and said it louder. When he still didn't turn around, she reached out and touched his shoulder.

He jumped back so quickly he startled her, and she jumped back herself. "Mai," he said. "Don't sneak up on people like that."

"I didn't sneak up on you," she said. "I called your name."

He looked confused. "I didn't hear anything."

"Well, I didn't mean to scare you."

"I wasn't scared," he insisted.

She could argue with that, but she hadn't come here to argue. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," he said.

She looked around the garden. The changes in the seasons were subtle in the Fire Nation, but the signs of approaching winter were all around. The heat loving flowers of summer--fire lilies, sunflowers, dragon asters--were dead, and the sunlight itself seemed to darken, colors and shadows deepening. The air had been warm all day, but when the sun set a cool wind would come over the royal city. There was a frenzy of activity in the palace as the servants rushed to prepare for all the events marking Fire Lord Ozai's coronation--the ball, the banquet, the parade--but here by the pond it was eerily quiet.

"Can I sit with you?" They had not been spending as much time together as they used to lately, so she thought she should ask.

He shrugged. "OK."

They sat by the pond together and said nothing for a while. She asked, "Where's Azula?"

"You came to see her?" he said, looking angry.

"No," she said. "I was just wondering."

He shrugged again. "She's been with Father all afternoon."

"I'm sorry about your grandfather," she said. Her skin prickled as she remembered the terrifying, fascinating sight of Fire Lord Azulon's body burning. She had clenched her fists so hard she dug deep marks into her palms with her fingernails, but she was glad her parents hadn't known she was afraid.

Zuko nodded, acknowledging her formal expression of sympathy. She wished she could think of some way of asking the question she wanted to ask-- _where's your mother_ \--without actually saying those words. If she were an adult lady, like her mother, she'd be able to do it. Everyone knew that Princess Ursa was gone, and everyone was talking about it, but no one said the words. They talked in codes, and Mai understood bits of what they said, but could not make sense of what had actually happened. Looking at Zuko now, she didn't know if he could make sense of it either.

"Zuko, what's happening?" It was the best she could come up with.

"What do you mean?"

She shrugged this time. "Your father's the Fire Lord now."

"I know that."

"That means...you'll be the Fire Lord someday." When he didn't say anything, she said, "You'll be able to make any kind of law you want. What kind of laws would you make?"

"I don't know!" Zuko shouted. "I'm tired of your stupid questions."

Any other time, she would have yelled back at him, but now she just stood up to leave. "You don't have to go," he said, looking up at her, an apology in his eyes.

She considered a moment, then sat back down. If he was tired of stupid questions, maybe he'd listen to one that wasn't stupid. She looked at his face, and asked, "Is your mother really gone?"

He looked away from her, and didn't say anything for a while. He finally answered, "I think so."

"Do you know where she went?"

"No."

"Will she come back?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know why she left?"

He swallowed hard, and said, "No."

"Did you...ask your dad?"

"Yes," Zuko said, anger hard in his voice. He still didn't look at her. "He knows where she is. He won't tell me."

"Are you sure he knows?"

"The Fire Lord knows everything."

Mai had heard that many times, in school, at her parents' parties, in plays and songs and stories. "He must have a reason," she said. She had no idea what that reason might be, but then she wasn't a father, or the Fire Lord.

"The reason is he hates me!" Zuko suddenly screamed.

Mai almost jumped at the fury in his voice. She knew Zuko had what her mother would call a "difficult relationship" with his father, but she'd never heard him say something like this before, so raw and bitter. Her mother would say he didn't mean it, which is what she said whenever Mai said something with force. She suspected he did mean it.

She had no idea what to say, so she took his hand and held it. He looked at her again, and he was sad and lonely and afraid, so she put her arms around him. He rested his head on her shoulder. He couldn't see her face redden again from his position, and she was glad. They sat like that in front of the quiet pond until dark, when the cool wind blew.

***

**Winter**

Mai held Zuko's hand as they climbed the hill above the Imperial Amphitheater. She didn't need any help getting up it, although it was quite steep--she just wanted to hold his hand. He had found a good spot. They had a clear view of the stage, but were away from the crowd below. She spread the blanket out on the grass, and they sat down to watch the winter solstice pageant.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, a chill filled the air, and Mai was soon shivering, despite wearing her warmest clothes.

"It's too cold," she said. "Why couldn't they move the pageant indoors this year?"

"It's always held outside," Zuko said. "Here, I can warm you up." He put his arms around her, and his warmth glowed against her, making her feel better immediately.

She smiled at him. "There are advantages to dating a fire bender." She felt a little odd still, using that word to describe the two of them-- _dating_. She kissed his cheek.

"Li and Lo said they'd never seen it this cold in the royal city before," Zuko said. "They said it's an omen of bad things to come."

"Your great aunts are superstitious," Mai said. "It's just weird weather. It's annoying." She snuggled up against him more. "But there is an upside." He brushed his lips against the tip of her ear, and she sighed happily. He nuzzled his cheek against hers, and she turned her head so they could kiss.

He stroked her hair, but suddenly pulled away from her. "Your hair's singed," he said, anger flashing across his face. "Did Azula do this?"

"Yeah," she said. She cuddled back up to him. "It's not a big deal."

"Yes it is!" he said. "What happened?"

"I kind of pissed her off."

"What did you do?"

She sighed. "She was bugging me about being with you. She asked me why in the world I'd want to kiss you, and I told her she was jealous because no one wants to kiss her. So she shot fire at me. She mostly missed. She hasn't talked to me since."

Zuko laughed at the insult to his sister, then turned serious. "Don't provoke her. You can never tell what she'll do."

"Don't worry so much," she said. "It's not the first time we've gotten mad at each other. If she hadn't lost her temper at me right away, then I'd be worried." She stroked the side of his face and reassured him, "It'll blow over." She kissed him again, and asked, "Are we going to waste time talking about other people?"

Rumbling, crashing drums exploded from the orchestra below, and they both sat up, startled. The sky was dark, and the moon had risen. Almost two hours had passed, the pageant was almost over, and she hadn't noticed. She felt dazed and flushed with warmth, even though it was even colder now.

"Look, Ty Lee's on," Zuko said.

Mai looked at the stage, and saw Ty Lee dressed as the Sun Spirit, in flowing yellow and orange robes and the same color face paint. Ty Lee managed to look solemn, although Mai knew she was giddy with happiness to be performing. The Sun Spirit was traditionally played by a student at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, and competition for the role was fierce. Ty Lee had been a surprising choice, because she was only twelve, but she certainly had the skills. She jumped and spun lightly around the dancers dressed as Sun Warriors, who knelt before her.

Mai knew the story, as did every Fire Nation child. Wu Ya, the great Sun Warrior hero, set out on a perilous quest to rescue the Sun Spirit after it was kidnapped by the night demons so that there would be eternal darkness. He was accompanied by the Queen of the Dragons and had a magic sword made from meteor rock that could cut shadows. It was one of the Fire Nation's most ancient legends, and had been performed on the winter solstice in the royal city for hundreds of years. The whole thing was an elaborate way for fire benders to reassure themselves of their power on the longest night of the year.

Once their friend finished her dance, they went back to kissing, which they did until a palace footman came to fetch Zuko, long after the pageant ended.


End file.
